What coup in Pakistan?

Wags say the judiciary and the army have colluded to form an alliance called the Pakistan Memo League to oust yet another government in the country. According to them, the Memo League has pronounced the first two talaqs of the triple talaq against civilian authorities: the first was the memogate scandal that erupted in October last year, and the second the Supreme Court's warning this week that it could disqualify both President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani for disobeying its orders in the National Reconciliation Ordinance case.

The big question now is if the final talaq culminates with the army action to uphold the sinister 'doctrine of necessity'. In short, a military coup.

Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain, a seasoned politician and a puppet Prime Minister of former military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf, once made a memorable one-liner about military coups in Pakistan - it takes just "two trucks and a jeep" to do so. An understatement, no doubt, but it speaks volumes about how easy it is to mount a coup in Islamabad. Probably as a reminder of this stark reality, the Pakistan army suddenly changed the command of the 111 Brigade on Wednesday, in a move it called a 'routine posting'. This infantry brigade is notorious for its fast response in organising coups. The posting came on the same day Prime Minister Gilani sacked defence secretary Lt-Gen (retd) Khalid Naeem Lodhi, considered close to the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, for "creating misunderstanding between the state institutions".

But then, what sort of coup? There are two types of hard military coups. First, pure powergrab. This is what happened in 1958 and 1977. In 1958, Gen Ayub Khan formed a clique with President Iskandar Mirza and, on the latter's "invitation", anointed himself chief martial law administrator, ostensibly to save democracy from bickering politicians. Soon after, Gen Ayub deposed Mirza and declared himself the President. In 1977, COAS Gen Ziaul Haq seized power just when the opposition Pakistan National Alliance, which was holding a national protest movement against the allegedly rigged general elections, was about to sign a pact with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party to call off the agitation. The second is the provocation-triggered coup. In 1999, Gen Musharraf, while airborne from Sri Lanka to Pakistan, pulled off the coup on the ground in Islamabad because the provocation was grave: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had the temerity to sack the COAS and replace him with Gen Ziauddin Butt, a known Sharif loyalist.

Then, there are two types of soft coups. The first is the 'change of guard', a palace coup of sorts. The only time this happened was in 1969, when Ayub Khan, now self-promoted Field Marshal, handed over power to Gen Yahya Khan when it became politically untenable for him to call the shots. The second variety of soft coup is when the army chief seeks to prevent the 'controlled' democracy from challenging the military establishment's supreme authority in the country's foreign and defence policies as well as its vice-like grip in internal politics. There were many in the 1990s, but the outstanding example came in 1993, when COAS Gen Abdul Waheed Kakar mediated a raging personality clash between Nawaz Sharif (who was heading his first government then) and the establishment's own man (and the Mian of Raiwind's one-time benefactor) President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, and made both resign at virtual gunpoint. Some call the five-month political tug-of-war and its denouement an unsurpassable thriller in Pakistan's tryst with civilian governments.

In 2012, which one of these hard or soft scenarios will play itself out? For any COAS, powergrab is a sitter any time; yet, every army chief must let discretion be the better part of valour. It is very unlikely that Gen Kayani will do it now, given the army's Abbottabad humiliation of May 2011 and, more importantly, how Gen Musharraf blotted the name of military rule until 2008. Moreover, the Supreme Court and Nawaz Sharif 's party, the PML(N), won't play ball. The 'change of guard' option is out of the question for obvious reasons.

That leaves two possibilities - the hard provocation-triggered and the soft remoulding of controlled democracy. Already, the army has reacted belligerently to Prime Minister Gilani's contention that Gen Kayani and ISI chief Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha had acted in an illegal manner in the memo scandal, saying these remarks could have "very serious ramifications with potentially grievous consequences". After sacking Lt-Gen Lodhi, if Prime Minister Gilani ratchets up escalation and removes Gen Kayani and Gen Pasha, then you can expect a full-scale army coup. But, only if Prime Minister Gilani loses the plot.

The third talaq can take just one plausible turn and that is the tweaking of democracy and shuffling of civilian figureheads (with the Supreme Court's generous help) to serve the army's interests - from inside the present government, outside it or early general elections.